Synopses & Reviews
Review
"The Principles of Effortless Power is one of the most profound books ever written about the martial arts....it opens up entirely new areas of inquiry, possibility, and realization." John Stone, Aikido in America
Review
"You can't fix Cheng Hsin on the wall with a pin, because, as you try, you realize that Cheng Hsin is the wall, and the pin, and the action, and the intent." Frank LaManna, T'ai Chin Journal
Synopsis
This seminal work, by the first Westerner ever to win the world championship in a full-contact martial arts tournament, draws on the internal disciplines of Tai Chi Ch'uan, Aikido, Pa Kua Ch'ang, and other arts to offer a new way of looking at who we are and how we live in the world. Peter Ralston calls his teaching Cheng Hsin, loosely translated as "integrity of being" or "your true nature". The principles, paradoxes, and mind-body exercises in this extraordinary book show how to harness the life energy inside us — and achieve effortless power in everything we do. Cheng Hsin explains how to be fully involved in whatever you're doing, especially during confrontation.
About the Author
Peter Ralston was raised in Asia and began studying martial arts at the age of nine. By the age of nineteen he was a black belt in Judo and Jujitsu (Nidan), black belt in Karate (Shodan), had been Sumo champion at his high school in Japan, Judo and fencing champion at the University of California at Berkeley, and had demonstrated proficiency in Kempo, Chuan Fa, and Northern Sil Lum Kung Fu. Later he studied Tai Chi Chuan, Hsing I Chuan, Pa Kua Chang, Aikido, Japanese and Chinese fencing, and western boxing.